Archive for August 2012

History, of a sort, is being made in Tampa, Florida this week at the Republican National Convention. A swarm of 2,286 delegates and 2,125 alternate delegates from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories have descended on the area.

The party faithful are gathered to ratify a foregone conclusion – the GOP nomination of former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts for president and U.S., Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as vice president.

An estimated 50,000 people (media, delegates, attendees and merchants) are taking part in the festivities, along with a brief visit from Hurricane Isaac.

National party conventions can be great fun. I ought to know.

I attended my first national GOP convention in San Francisco in 1956 when I was a 19-year-old college student working on Capitol Hill. I served as a “go-fer” for the convention chairman, U.S. Rep. Charlie Halleck of Indiana, who was the U.S House Minority Leader, and I got to see backstage how these shows are really run.

Later, as an elected delegate, I went in 1964, 1972, 1976 and 1980. At Detroit in 1980, I was co-chairman of the Maryland delegation with the late U.S. Senator Charles C. “Mac” Mathias. The Baltimore Sun dubbed us “the odd couple,” me on the political far Right, Mac on the Left.

So, I am also speaking from experience when I tell you that party conventions mean almost absolutely nothing…

Sound and Fury

It was not political conventions Shakespeare had in mind when he had Macbeth eloquently describe life “as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But it might well have been.

In what has become one of the more meaningless functions of national party conventions, the so-called “Party Platform” is supposedly a statement of beliefs and a list of pledges of what the party will do.

One of my favorites, the late and great Will Rogers, explained: “The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything, it takes a long time to explain it.”

While both parties have pretty much stopped the platform “straddle,” successful candidates, once in the White House, seem quickly to forget the documents ever existed.

Keep the Change

I don’t usually quote the late governor of Alabama, George Wallace, but a 1968 observation he made about U.S political parties has stuck with me: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Republicans and Democrats.” When it comes to party platforms, the words on the issues may differ, but the ultimate actions are not that different.

Face it folks, no matter who wins the presidential election on November 6, the ruinous bipartisan policies that have gotten us into this mess are likely to change, if at all, only by degrees.

It was George Bush and Barack Obama who joined to pass the billions in big bank, Wall Street and auto bailouts. Paul Ryan voted for all of it. The national debt today approaches $16 trillion and the dollar is dying. Does either side have a real plan?

Most of the post-9/11 civil liberties abuses, illegal surveillance, wiretaps and other Bush-era police state initiatives were adopted and expanded by President Obama, including the extension of the PATRIOT Act, although Obama campaigned against them in 2008. Neither candidate has even mentioned them this time.

One of the most destructive political acts of this generation, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was fully bipartisan, as is the needless war in Afghanistan, where our “allies” are murdering American soldiers daily.

Many of the most damaging policies inflicted on Americans by Washington’s political elites, through laws and rules, are enacted on a fully bipartisan basis.

Your Own Platform

You bet there is a crying need for adoption of a platform – a statement of principle and action – here and now, but it is a plan for what needs to be done by you for your own safety and salvation.

You can’t depend on politicians to help you. Only you can formulate the planks and only you can carry it into action – and time is running out. After the election, it may be too late.

Edited as not relevant to this blog.

Resume.

Don’t just stand there mute as your freedoms die around you. Understand the true meaning of events —take the decisive action needed.

My fellow Marylander, the late H.L. Mencken, once described democracy as “the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Unless Americans wake up, we’re all going to get it “good and hard” and it won’t be pleasant. Make sure your personal platform is in place before it’s too late.

This is our speculation: our comments continuously criticized the stupidity, bias and evil of their articles. Instead of dealing in facts, huffpost resorted to censorship. Cannot win, they they took their toy and went home like a spoiled child. This is unAmerican, but maybe uneducated brats know nothing about being an American.

In our opinion, most of what was written on huffpost was propaganda of the Goebbels style pushing the Democratic party’s ideology and the re-election of u-bam-a.

If this is what huffpost is about, why would any honest, intelligent American read their articles?

“Being rather elitist, conservative intellectuals gain comfort knowing that the GOP base consists of solid, virtuous, middle class folk whom the liberal media like to disparagingly label ‘rural Americans, regular churchgoers, married families and gun owners.’ Though compared to the Democratic Party base – union laborers, local government bureaucrats, and welfare recipients – the GOP base does seem positively enlightened.”

–Christopher Orlet, November 11, 2004

If this was totally true, then the GOP base would be true Americans while the DEM base would be total losers. The DEM base also includes many special interest groups wanting extra and special benefits at the expense of the majority of Americans, and elitist individuals who hate their own kind. The GOP base also includes many businessmen, whether public executives or small business owners.

From the above, all Americans should vote strict GOP.

But there is a glitch in this. The politicians of each major party do not truly represent their constituents; the Republicans more so than the Democrats. Democratic politicians buy votes by giving their constituents what they want at the expense of the majority of Americans. The Republicans talk a good game but do not delivery anything to most of their constituents.

But all of this is of little importance when in context with the most important fact: with a handful of exceptions, all politicians are TOTALLY incompetent.

This means that most of what either party does is harmful to the citizens.

The voters are totally responsible for this. The voters continue to vote for the same idiots over and over again.

It is past time for the voters to change the way they vote, vote for individuals with ability. Follow NEW POLITICAL PARTY today.

Private property is property owned by legal persons or business entities. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property has the right to consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transfer, exchange or destroy it, or to exclude others from doing these things.

Traditional principles of property rights include:

control of the use of the property

the right to any benefit from the property (examples: mining rights and rent)

a right to transfer or sell the property (but not all property can be transferred or sold)

a right to exclude others from the property.

Traditional property rights do not include:

uses that unreasonably interfere with the property rights of another private party (the right of quiet enjoyment).

uses that unreasonably interfere with public property rights, including uses that interfere with public health, safety, or peace.

Private Property Rights must be protected as they are the font from which society and civilization flow. These Rights must be protected from the government at all costs.

A guest article from the past but very relevant to today.
The problem with politics as usual, as I see it, is that we are all — citizens and politicians — prisoners of our human nature.

We the citizen/voters are too human. We want instant gratification, solutions to all our problems. Too many of us think government can and should do it all. “The government that governs least governs best,” has been replaced with a demand directed at politicians: “What have you done for me lately.” deTocqueville was right when he predicted that as soon as Americans discovered they could elect leaders that would buy their votes with other peoples’ money, democracy would become a farcical bidding war.

Lord knows that the politicians are all too human. And I am not speaking of human foibles that result in furtive personal liaisons. Stained dresses in the Oval Office are one thing, but I refer to pandering to the avaricious greed deTocqueville saw then and we see now. Power goes to the highest bidder.

Politicians start out (some of them) wanting to do good, and then they do very well — too well– for themselves. Power becomes an end in and of itself. The principled idealist becomes a calculating dissembler.

Ronald Reagan (the late president, not the renegade son), used to ask jokingly: “Do you know how to tell when politicians are lying?” His answer, with a rueful grin: “When their lips are moving.”

I’m troubled from time to time by Gibbon’s observation in his classic “Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.” He wrote that in all history the average republic lasts about 200 years. Last July 4th was America’s 227th birthday.

Dan Aponte and I were talking this morning about the presidential choice we face this fall, inspired by the noise and ballyhoo of the current Democratic lovefest in Boston. We both are in a quandary about a choice — neither of these guys is really appealing when you put them up against our very real concerns about liberty, peace and America’s future. And we both have kids about whom we worry, plus I have six grandkids. They’ll have to pay these politicians’ bills.

It reminds me of an editorial endorsement I got when I first was elected to the US Congress in a 1973 special election. The editor didn’t like either candidate, but concluded I was the least harmful. He entitled his editorial: “Hold Your Nose and Vote!”